Nursery Food Menu - can you show me yours?

[Inyourwildestdreams]

If you get a written menu, are you able to show it here for comparison? My child has not long started nursery and all parents seem to be moaning about the meals 😅 It wouldn’t necessarily be things that I’d cook for him at home but I don’t think it’s that bad.

For context -

• 3/4yo kids
• fully covered by funded hours with no top up and no parent contribution towards food
• dietary requirements taken into account and kids meals adapted to suit
• fresh salad and at least 2 vegetables available at each meal with kids encouraged to help themselves to them
• kids also get 2 snacks per day - all fresh fruit/veg and milk & water available.
• all kids either do 5 mornings/afternoons or 2.5 days

Mine aren't in Nursery anymore but just looking at your Menu, that's an awful lot of lentil soup?

Yes - what's with all the lentil soup?

With ours, soup is an extra course, not the meal itself.

www.clacks.gov.uk/learning/elcmenu/

2-3 year olds

Yesterday meatballs with mash, green beans and gravy

today nasi goreng with soya and broad beans

Wednesday
Chic pea burger with wedges and dry slaw

Thursday
spaghetti bolognaise

Friday
Roasted cauliflower curry

My son's nursery menu is a bit more varied than that and they never give them chips. But things all the kids reliably eat like macaroni cheese do tend to feature a bit more in real life than in the published menu.

Have to say he bloody loves lentil soup though. If you offer him soup he says 'is it lentil?' and cries if it isn't. He's two.

It's a lot of ultra-processed food for pretty much every meal that isn't soup. If the soups are all handmade I wouldn't have an issue with the frequency of them, but I'd guess they aren't. Im not sure I'd be that happy with that menu, but it probably correlates with the fact they don't charge a top up.

Funding for 3/4yo is around £5/hr...

For free? Seems pretty good to me considering it’s fully covered by the free hours.

Would love to tell you but they barely update the menu on the app so it's blank most the time 🙄

Ours is a lot more varied that that but its also very expensive 😅 I think it seems OK but agree with others a bit heavy on the lentil soup.. kids must love it! I'll see if I can find a menu copy to share

This is ours. Toddler room (18 months to 30 months approx). We have 15 funded hours; the funding takes a day rate from £93 to around £40.

My ds meals this week are
Spring roast chicken, veg ( choice of 3) and parsley butter new potatoes, fruit and oat cookie for pudding
Beef tacos, salad and wedges, banana cake and custard for pudding
Steamed salmon, veg and couscous, jelly for pudding
Spaghetti carbonara, veg and garlic bread, brownie for pudding
Fish and chips, peas or beans and fruit wedges for pudding
Bread and butter and yoghurt available too, £3.80 a meal

I actually hadn’t even noticed all the lentil soup 😂😂

The soup is an extra course in ours too. So lunch & dinner are both 2 courses - either soup and main, or main and dessert. The soup is definitely made fresh on site but I’d assume the burger/sausage roll etc are bought in rather than homemade.

It’s definitely more processed food than we eat at home but I can’t get worked up about it when I’m not paying any top up etc. Moans from parents seem to be things like snacks being fruit/veg rather than crackers etc that their kids will eat. Or there not being enough choice 😅

Ours is brilliant, so much I use their menu as inspiration for cooking! Over the last 2 weeks main meals have been:

Chicken and vegetable casserole
Pasta bolognese
Potato and lentil curry
Fish fingers, mash and beans
Spinach and brocolli mac and cheese
Savoury mince, cabbage and mash

Afternoon tea can be pasta and veg, soup, cous cous or baked potato and fillings or pitta bread and fillings. They also once or twice a week give them a proper pudding such as brownies, apple crumble etc but it's all sugar free snd I think these things are important as part of a balanced diet. They don't use salt in their cooking or processed food like sausages or ham which makes me feel less guilty when I give him these at home!

We don’t have a published menu that’s easy to share but that doesn’t seem bad to me. Wanting more choice is mad! Though on days when my youngest has refused all her mains they will give her a jam sandwich so she’s not starving.

Ours has less meat, it’s totally vegetarian probably 3 days out of 5 (though that might also be because my DC don’t eat pork, so they get the veggie option if that’s what the others are eating). Lentils also feature heavily in our menu and tbh that doesn’t bother me at all; they eat pretty much everything they’re given and lentils are really nutritious.

Ours do give “pudding” after every meal, either fruit or sugar free cake/flapjack.

The amount of food served at nursery seems never ending! But reports are she scoffs the lot, 11 months.

Breakfast
Morning snack
Lunch with pudding
Afternoon snack plus fruit

bbcdn2.fra1.digitaloceanspaces.com/downloads/bb-autumn-winter-menu-23.pdf

Here's what my son had last week for his main meal (he has the vegetarian option, hence the emphasis on beans). Snacks are always fruit and salad stuff plus something like quesadillas, crumpet, a sandwich, or rice cakes and cream cheese.

Lentil chilli, rice, vegetables; fruit crumble and custard

Cheesy leek and mushroom pasta bake, veg; raspberry cake

Caribbean cannelloni beans, rice, veg; St Peter's mud pie

Butterbean bake, baked beans, veg; blueberry cake

Quorn fillet, roast potatoes, veg; fruit tartan and custard

The nursery has its own kitchen on site and employs its own catering staff who cook from scratch (we get 'recipe of the month' shared on the app should we feel the urge to replicate any of it at home)

Ours is private nursery and we don't get a printed menu in advance, just find out what they've eaten on a note at the end of the day!

Lunches tend to be spag bol, chicken curry and rice, veg soup and mash, chilli con carne, salmon pasta and white sauce, Mac and cheese, stew etc.

Snacks are unlimited fruit, veg sticks, crackers and cheese, wheaten bread, savoury muffins, oatcakes and rice cakes.

Ours is more like chill, curry, cottage pie, pasta bake, and scone, toast etc for tea. I am happy with it. No soup which I'm glad about as it sounds messy! Do they have vegetarian options? Our primary school has a menu with processed food like that so I give mine packed lunch there.

So I've been having this conversation with friends and family recently and have looked everywhere online to to find info/help in regards to what's expected food wise at nursery. my daughter receives 15 hours funded a week, I pay a top up fee of £2.55 per hour and I also have her in extra days which are charged at standard rate. this is the menu I receive. would you said Cheesy Mash and Mixed veg is a meal? is that even allowed. they also do not serve puddings. and pasta two days in a row?

My toddler attends three days a week. This week's she's had:
Minced beef and potatoes
Fishcakes, carrots and mash
Homemade sausage roll, peas and coleslaw.
It's pretty varied on the whole.
Snacks have been:
Crackers, veg and dip
Pancakes and fruit
Greek yoghurt and homemade banana bread (which they baked in the room as an activity).

I teach in a primary school and my daughter's meals are definitely more varied and better quality than what the kids get where I work. For the cost (ie no top ups) I think I'd be happy enough with your nursery menu, except perhaps the jelly and desserts... Just fruit or yoghurt would be better most days.

I'm a nursery cook
Ours is a 3 week menu
With all meat from local butcher
We have toast & milk for breakfast
Then something like
Chilli
Keema
Pasta
Fish
For lunch
Fresh fruit platter
Snack is veg sticks
Tea is something like
Pizza
Cheese swirls
Bagels
All cooked from scratch